Journal: On the High Seas

 

First Order of Business:  The promised ‘foghorn story’ from the MV John Hamilton Gray ferry.  (By the way, do you know what the letters ‘MV’ in front of a ship’s name stand for?  I thought it stood for ‘Marine Vessel’.  I was wrong.  But only 50% wrong!  I should get at least half a gold star, right?  ‘MV’ before a ship’s name stands for ‘Motor Vessel’.)

So...  the Foghorn Story.  I’ll even throw in Cape Breton coal trains, Quidi Vidi, and a North Atlantic storm, free of charge.

As previously related, I was 12, and was traveling with my parents to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to visit missionaries our church supported, Ralph Sarvers and his family.

We took a big ship across the Saint Lawrence Strait, from Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, to Channel Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

As we waited in line to drive onto the ferry, we watched long trains trundling into their places in the lower part of the ship.  Big trucks were driven onto the next deck, campers and motorhomes and pickups above the trucks, and, finally, the deck for cars.  We were driving our Buick Electra, so we had a bit of a wait.  But it was all new and interesting, so we didn’t mind.

The train engines would pull a long line of train cars into the ship as far as they could go, then workers would disconnect the cars at that point and use small railcar movers to pull the cars onto adjacent tracks.

Daddy said that if tugboats pulled boats into the harbour, then it must be tugtrains that pulled the train cars into the depths of the ferry. 

Hmmm... I wonder what they’re really called?  ... looking it up...  Oh!  Haha, would you believe, they’re called ‘tugs’?!  Shunters, tugs, and even ‘critters’, which is the particular term for small, older switching locomotives used when full-sized locomotives are too big.

I can just imagine Daddy’s laugh, had I found this out and told him, back then.

Three sets of engines, many trucks and campers, and a large number of cars were on that ferry.  Some of the train cars boarding the ferry at North Sydney, Nova Scotia, were full of coal, as the last significant coal mining in Newfoundland ended with the closure of the Bell Island iron ore mines in 1966.

Seeing these, I asked, “Is that coal coming from Wyoming?”  (That’s the question of a girl with a whole lot more knowledge of Wyoming than of eastern Canada.)

Mama pointed out the insignia on the sides of the cars:  SCR.  That stood for Sydney Coal Railroad.  (This picture is from a YouTube video, Coal trains in Cape Breton - Sydney Coal Railway operations at Lingan in Feb. 2023.  I’m sure the engine and cars are newer than the ones we saw, but they’re painted in the same colors.)  The coal was coming from Cape Breton.

Newfoundland’s mining today focuses more on iron ore (Labrador), copper, zinc, and other minerals.

After crossing the St. Lawrence Strait and arriving at Channel-Port aux Basques some six hours later, we drove 166 miles and rented a cabin near Deer Lake.  It was late August, and I thought the temperature was fine; but Daddy was hot, and somewhat irked that the place had no air conditioner.  We opened the windows – and were then awakened periodically throughout the night by horses whinnying and nickering in a nearby hillside pasture.

I, predictably, thought this was just wonderful.  Daddy, just as predictably, was further irked.  He’d had quite enough of horses when he was growing up!  Mama, also predictably, offered no opinion one way or the other.

The next day, we continued around the northern perimeter of the island – the only way to get there – to St. John’s, another 395 miles, to visit the Sarvers.  Mr. Sarvers took us to the Quidi Vidi Battery Provincial Historic Site, and a nice old man up on the lookout tower put a nickel into the telescope/binoculars so I could look out over Quidi Vidi Harbour – whereupon I was suddenly astonished to realize that those white things out in the ocean were icebergs!  In August!  Furthermore, they were enormous, because the thing near an iceberg that I’d thought was a little piece of driftwood was in fact a longboat, and there were 16 men in it, rowing like everything!

We then went to Middle Cove Beach (photo by Donna Smith).  

The breakers were roaring in, crashing and breaking and churning right up to our feet.  Those waves would curl way, way up before they crashed down, and I felt like they were going to engulf me.  I was 12 years old, but I took hold of my Daddy’s hand.  I like the beaches of Newfoundland.  The sand is black, and the high cliffs rise up starkly at one’s back, while the waves come crashing in with tremendous echoing roars.  Some little kids playing nearby, when they realized the tide had begun to turn, ran shrieking back up the footpath to the top of the cliff.  We followed, a bit more sedately.  Or at least Daddy and Mr. Sarvers were more sedate.  😉

We stayed for two days.  Or was it three?  No longer than three.

When we were on our way home, there was a storm in the North Atlantic, causing rough waters in the Strait.  That big ship was rocking from side to side, and people were getting seasick.  I watched a stout little man trying to keep a large handful of grapes on his plate while he was reaching for other things in the salad bar.  My father unobtrusively elbowed me.  He always knew when I was about to laugh.  Perhaps because we shared the same sense of humor?  😅

We sat down at a table, and I removed my chair entirely from its moorings with one violent jerk when it wouldn’t slide forward far enough to suit me.  I hadn’t known it was tethered!  Nearly threw myself halfway across the cafeteria when it came loose, I did.

The steward, the same one who had befriended us on our first crossing, said in his soft, modulated, French-accented voice, “My goodness.  Most men can’t pull those tethers loose.”

My father was proud of me and my mother was embarrassed.  Therefore, I was proud and embarrassed.

My parents, unaffected by the storm, went to one of the many nice lounges that night, lay down in large, comfortable recliners, and dimmed the lights.

Perfect.  I could explore unhindered.

The decks on that ship were called by the French term, ‘Ponts.’  Pont 1 was at the top.  There were 8 upper ponts, and, below those, Ponts 9, 10, 11, and 12 were where the big engines were.  Level 5 was for the cars – thousands of them, I thought; but maybe it was only hundreds.  I was totally awestruck at that big ship.  It was again the John Hamilton Gray, the same ferry we’d taken earlier in the week on our way to Newfoundland. 

The sea was running high and wild.  The ship was reeling and rocking.  You should have seen all the greenish-hued people scurrying down the hallways to the Small Rooms.

I remembered the elbow, and tried hard not to laugh, unsympathetic little wretch that I was.

Lightning on the water made it look as though the sea was on fire... and thunder sounded completely different out there.  I found a ladder going up through a ... um ...  wonder what that thing was called, anyway?  A vertical tunnel ladder.  Surely it has a name. 

Ah, ha!  It’s a roof hatch ladder.  Furthermore, the hatch was open.  Open.   What did anyone expect me to do, huh huh huh huh huh?

When I arrived at the top after a long climb, lo and behold, I was on the very top deck!  It was drizzling rain... lightning everywhere...luminescent fog rolling across the waves...  But I stood under a small overhang next to a little room of some sort (I would soon learn just what it was for), clutched the rail, and thrilled to the excitement of such an awe-inspiring experience.

That’s when the foghorn blew. 

Yes, in the little foghorn house right behind me. 

And I, who never jump, nearly jumped overboard.  My heart was still lost at sea, I had not nearly recovered, when I got another violent start:  someone grabbed my arm.  It was the steward.  He’d found my parents sleeping, noticed that I was nowhere to be seen, and thought he should hunt me down and return me to safety.  Botheration.  The ol’ killjoy.  A nice ol’ killjoy, but a killjoy, nonetheless.

For the rest of the trip, I spent a good deal of time avoiding him with all my might and main.  But I didn’t go back up to the top deck.

Every spare minute I had last week, I scanned and edited pictures.  I sent this one to Hester, writing, “Here you are checking out the dog’s ear.  Aleutia held verrry still, but squinched her eyes shut, just in case.”

I then told her the following story:  “I realized one day that you were verrrrrry carefully touching the long hairs inside Aleutia’s ear – and then when she’d flick her ear, you’d laugh uproariously.  That’s what brought me to take a look – one should check on one’s offspring’ns when they’re too quiet, or when something’s too funny.  Aleutia wasn’t moving a muscle, just flicking the ear.  She rolled her big blue eyes at me when I peeked around the corner, and then wagged her big flag of a tail.  She was having fun, too, as much as you were!”

Aleutia was not much older than Hester.  The dog was probably 2 in these pictures.  She’d hold her tail stiffly out to one side as she walked past Hester, as I had pushed it to one side and told her to “Be careful of the baby!” ever since Hester was tiny.  That was a hard job for her, because that big, bushy tail wanted to wag.

Here’s another picture I sent Hester, this one of Andrew and his father Ricky, when Andrew was a little over a year old.

“That’s so cute!!!” responded Hester.  “I showed it to Oliver and he thought it was himself. 😄😍”

I sat down to play some Christmas songs, and turned the page to find one of my favorites, He Is Coming.  Now, I know that the original words were written by Fanny Crosby, and I knew that either my blind friend Penny or I wrote the Christmas words.  No name was penciled in, leading me to think it was probably me, since I tried to be careful to plug in Penny’s name if she wrote the words; I wasn’t as concerned, if it was me.

I wrote and asked her.

She promptly replied, “Silly old bear.  It was YOU YOU YOU who wrote them.” 

She then told how the next morning at church she was sitting next to a late friend of ours, Helen Tucker, the lady who ‘accidentally’ taught me to read when I was not quite four, and who gave me piano lessons for several years.  “As the different words came by, Helen said, ‘OH, listen; they are singing the song with Christmas words!’ but it was in a stage whisper that could have been heard for a good distance.”  😄

“Anyway,” finished Penny, “YOU WROTE THEM!  There, put your name right on it.”

And so I did.  😊

Here’s the song.  The children sang it at our Christmas Program in 1997. 

I plugged those words into the music with my old Word Processor in the pre-computer days.  (And of course it wasn’t me who put the misspeelt ‘hallelujahs’ in the chorus; I would never do that!  As soon as I figure out who to blame, I’ll let you know.)

I’ve been having fun sending the kids some of the pictures I’ve scanned.  Here are Hannah, 9, and Dorcas, 8, in the Thanksgiving outfits I made for them.  I sent these to the girls, and Dorcas replied, “I felt so pretty in that outfit!”

Below are Teddy, 7, Joseph, 5, and Keith, 10.

I started a load of laundry, using Mox concentrated detergent, lavender and vanilla bean Downy rinse, and lavender and vanilla bean scent beads – amazingly, I somehow am using matching scents; unheard of!  heh

I washed and filled both of my warm-mist vaporizers, then got back to scanning pictures.  I started the next album, from Feb 2003 to July 2003, then decided I wanted to scan the pictures we got for Christmas first. 

It was cooold up there in my quilting room.   I have the printer and laptop on my maple table.  I set the EdenPURE heater on full blast, and soon it was warming things up.

That evening, a friend wrote to inform me, “The Rapture is occurring tonight!  Just thought you might want to know.  It’ll be at 9:33 p.m. your time.”

She didn’t really mean it, you understand.  She was merely telling me what some ‘prophesying’ crackpot had just informed the world.  ’Course, the same crackpot had also said the Rapture would occur November 30^th... December 23^rd... and dozens of other times a little farther back in history.  The goofball is so busy scouring Scriptures for times and dates and mathematical equations that will lead her to the exact date of the Rapture that she has totally ignored (don’t tell me she doesn’t know) this verse:  “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

Jesus Himself said that.

 

Paul wrote this in I Thessalonians 5:

¹ But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

² For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

³ For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

⁴ But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

⁵ Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

⁶ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

⁷ For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

⁸ But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

 

‘A thief in the night’ – meaning, when it is not expected, and certainly not announced.

‘Let us watch and be sober’ – we are to live as we would if we knew the Lord’s coming was imminent – as well it might be.  There are very few Biblical prophesies that have not already been fulfilled.

‘Sleep’ and ‘drunkenness’ in these verses means people are going about unaware, uncaring, sinning with abandon, unbelieving, and totally unprepared for Christ’s return.

 

In II Peter 3, it says:

³ Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

⁴ And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵ For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

⁶ Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

⁷ But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

⁸ But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

⁹ The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

¹¹ Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

¹² Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

¹³ Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

¹⁴ Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

¹⁵ And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

 

By verse 3 we realize that it is indeed, right now, ‘the last days’, because the number of scoffers in this old world, that is, those who mock at those who believe in the Lord Jesus as the Savior of men, is greater than it’s ever been. 

They scoff at those who love the Lord and believe He is returning soon, saying exactly what verse 4 says they will say:  “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

The reason He has not returned yet?  Because He is ‘longsuffering’, ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,’ as it says in verse 9.

Jesus said in Luke 21, after listing some of the signs of the end times, many of which either have already taken place or are taking place now, “know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”

So yes, we should certainly be expecting the Lord’s return at any time – but we have no business trying to predict the day and hour.  My father sometimes said that he was pretty sure the Lord would not come on any particular day some harebrain had predicted.

‘Prophets’ should stop with all their wrong and ungodly prophesies and follow Paul’s example to “preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” – not the “wisdom of the world”, as he wrote in I Corinthians 2.

I Corinthians 13:2:  “Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”  Verse 8:  “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”

Do people whose only mission is to ‘figure out’ the day of Rapture ever read their Bibles?  If they do, they’re probably like King Jehoiakim, who cut the scroll with his penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth – they trim out the part they don’t like, or that doesn’t fit their agenda.  Just like King Jehoiakim, they need to repent and turn to God.

 

Wow, all that because some idget predicted the day – and even the exact, precise time! – of the Rapture.  The time of her prediction has come and gone.  And now my diatribe is over.

Tuesday evening, I had Campbell’s Grilled Chicken and Sausage Gumbo soup (hot stuff!), applesauce, and cran-grape juice for supper.  Larry wasn’t home; he’d gone to Minnesota to pick up a hydraulic dump box that fits inside his pickup box.

I put the last load of clothes into the washing machine, and went on scanning pictures we got for Christmas.  It was a tall stack!  I quit at the halfway point and headed for the feathers.

Larry got home around 3:00 a.m.

Fortunately, he was able to sleep a little later than usual, since instead of going to work, we were going at 10:00 a.m. to the funeral of an elderly friend, June Wilgocki.

June was a Sunday School teacher at our church from 1968 to 1991, for the 4^th-graders. She was my Sunday School teacher when I was in 4^th grade.

She then taught grades 1-3 when our school was smaller, and later, when there were more teachers and more children, she taught Kindergarten, for a total of 17 years.

There were probably 500 people at that funeral, and flowers all over the front platform.  June was 90.

Here’s Hester in 1989, at 4 months.  She was born on June’s birthday – and June never forgot to give her a card, and a balloon, too, when she was little.

One year, she gave her a helium balloon with a little duck on it.  Hester would’ve been 8, because Victoria was a baby.

So there was Victoria, lying on my bed – and Hannah was playing with her with Hester’s balloon, pulling it down quickly by the ribbon and saying, “Quack-quack-quack!”

And Victoria, who was just three months, laughed right out loud for the first time.

Hannah was so delighted that she was the one to bring that on.  This is Victoria at two months.

That evening, which was New Year's Eve, I walked out on the back deck to retrieve the bird feeders, frightening a young raccoon who was chowing down on sunflower seeds.  Big, rolling booms could be heard from town, some 7 miles away.  I’d forgotten it was New Year's Eve until I heard the commotion.

Thursday morning, I made a fresh gallon of cold brew with Pecan Torte-flavored coffee beans from Aroma Ridge.  I like to let it steep for 18-24 hours.  So in the meanwhile I made myself a mug of Dunkin vanilla hazelnut cold brew with a few gloop-gloops of Irish Crème CoffeeMate creamer (to camouflage the Dunkin, which isn’t nearly as good as homemade cold brew, and must be watered down extensively to be bearable). 

Then off I went to continue scanning photos.

A friend who doesn’t drink coffee, much less flavored coffee, wanted to know, “How do you stay little, consuming the sugar you guzzle down?”

“There’s no sugar in that cold brew,” I replied.  “I grind the flavored coffee beans, put the ground coffee in the central filter of the glass gallon jug, and pour water down through the filter until the jug is full.  After it steeps overnight, I fill a mug ⅓ full of the concentrated cold brew, ⅔ full of water, and add ice cubes.  That’s it.  Nothing but coffee.  Zero calories.  I consume very little sugar; don’t feel well if I do.  Irish Crème CoffeeMate creamer is a rare indulgence, and I used only enough to camouflage the Dunkin cold brew, which I don’t like much.”

So there.

At 2:00 p.m., it was 35°, but felt like 43°.  There was only a little dab of snow left in our front yard, which is on the north.

At a quarter after 2, I scanned the last page in another album.  Next, I needed to crop all the pictures – 298, in this album.  They were taken with one of my last film cameras before I went digital.  It was a Minolta SLR, and took excellent pictures, so not much editing would be needed at all, just cropping.  I was able to scan entire pages in this album.  Each page holds three 4x5 pictures.

I made myself a tumbler of Arctic Vibe Celsius to celebrate.

I paused to look out the back patio door before heading back upstairs – and spotted a red-breasted nuthatch on the suet feeder – first one I’ve seen this winter.  There’ve been a few white-breasted nuthatches.

(Photo from All About Birds)

Later that afternoon, I stopped for a little snack:  Apple and Cinnamon tea from Christopher Bean Company, and a ‘Better Nut Bar’ in dark chocolate and sea salt that we got from the church after last week’s program, along with other candy, apples, and oranges.

It was a quarter after nine when I finished cropping the pictures I’d scanned.  Here’s one of the pictures I scanned that day.  It was in 2003, so Victoria was 6.

Larry left for Sulphur, Louisiana, that evening to pick up a scissor lift he’d purchased on a Purple Wave auction.  He needed to be there by 11:00 a.m. the next morning.  It was a 954-mile trip, which, according to Google Maps, should take 14 hours and 41 minutes, not counting pitstops.  Larry was sure he could make it.  I was just as sure that he could not.

Here are Victoria and Caleb in Caleb’s room.

I might’ve started on the next album, but my right hand and fingers were hurting.  I’d been mostly ignoring it all day, putting it down to arthritis, when all of a sudden I remembered why it was hurting:  Wednesday night I was sitting in my recliner when a mosquito went drifting along between me and my laptop, and I realized the dumb thing had just bitten me on the temple.  He zeroed in on the back of my hand (mosquitoes never get full, you know).  I held very still ---- and then, just as he settled into landing mode, I clobbered him, ka-whomp.

I did kill the mosquito, so ha! – but I also injured my index finger.  By the next morning, my hand was stiff, and by Day Two, both hand and finger had done got worser.

I’ve gotta learn to be less vicious!  heh

That evening after retiring to my recliner, I watched a video of a man cleaning a severely hoarded house, describing things as he went along.  “Now in this room,” he intoned in seeming sobriety, “I found a thriving colony of moose droids.  We were able to relocate those to an enchanted forest, so don’t worry about them.  They mostly just frolic.  Moose droids are notorious for frolicking, and if you find them at the bottom of a hoard, well... there’s just no room for frolicking when you’re cleaning a hoarded house; they have to be relocated.” 

I felt a strong inclination to relocate moose droids after watching that.  But I valiantly suppressed it and watched another video, this time, of people renovating an old Victorian house.

I looked at the clock.  Bother!  It was 2:02 a.m.!  I’d fully intended on going to bed early. 

Ah, well.  Now it was early.  (◔_◔)

Friday was a foggy, foggy day.  When I refilled and rehung the bird feeders a little after 9 that morning, I couldn’t even see the lane on the south side of our property.  By 10:30 a.m., the temperature was 25°. 

While I blow-dried and curled my hair, I read the news.  There was an article about a woman in California who was killed by a shark, despite a shark band on her ankle that supposedly emits electromagnetic waves to deter shark bites.

The comments were as might be expected.  The first one: 

“I thought maybe a shark band was something with your name and address on it, so that in the event you are killed by a shark, they can identify the body.”

Next:  “I thought it was a group of four guys playing music, dressed as sharks.”

At 4:30 that afternoon, a small, continuous noise caught my attention.  Thinking it was a fly bonking his brains against one of the long lights in my quilting room, I glanced up – and discovered that the east window was totally covered with frozen raindrops.

Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, Larry was supposed to arrive in Sulphur, Louisiana, at 11:00 a.m.  He therefore arrived at 5:15 p.m.  

GPS had taken him on a ‘shorter’ route of roads winding over hill and dale – and then he had a small fender-bender with a semi when the GPS told him to turn left from either of two turning lanes – but he thought it meant right there, rather than at the next corner.  The semi was to his left, and was not turning; in fact, he was attempting to switch to the lane to his right.  They must’ve both been in each other’s blind spots?  I need a diagram to properly understand this!

The semi wound up with a bent right front bumper (the better to match a previous ripple on the left), and Larry’s truck wound up with a scuffed tire.  Nothing too serious, but they nevertheless had to call the police, because the other driver was in a company truck with a dashcam, and if he didn’t report it, he’d get fired.  So that used up an hour.

By the time he got to his destination, no one was at the place of business.  He called Purple Wave Auction, and they finally found someone to come back and help him a little before 6:00 p.m.

I saw by Google Maps Activity that he plugged “Take Me Home” into his GPS at 6:40 p.m.  He hadn’t had more than 45 minutes of sleep, so he would have to stop before long.  His Kodiak has a sleeper, and he had a thick, warm sleeping bag, so he should be able to sleep comfortably.  Theoretically.

A freezing rain was still falling at 9:30 p.m., but it stopped a little later. 

Saturday morning it was foggy again.  The temperature stayed below freezing until at least noon, so the freezing rain topped by half an inch or less of snow had not melted, and the roads were quite slippery.  The roads would be fine by the time Larry would be driving them.

Here are a couple more of the pictures I scanned:  Aaron holding Nathanael, and Ethan; and Emma and Joanna.  The pictures were taken in the summer of 2006.  Daughter-in-law Amy, Ethan and Emma’s mama, made the clothes.  And yes, that’s hand-smocking on Ethan’s and Nathanael’s little outfits.

I saw on Google Activity that at 9:46 a.m., Larry was looking for a NAPA store, and the closest one he found was in Huntsville, Texas.  So that gave me a little indication of his whereabouts.  I generally let him call me, instead of calling him, so as not to call when he’s sleeping, or driving in heavy traffic.

He later told me that he had gotten a couple of fuel filters and installed them on his truck, after noticing that the engine was missing. 

Not that the engine was gone, you understand.  ‘Missing’, as in ‘misfiring’.  (Why don’t we just say ‘misfiring’ in the first place?!  English, tsk.)

Here are Caleb and Victoria playing in the sand beside Calamus Reservoir, in about 2004.

 Finches, sparrows, and juncos were drinking and bathing in a puddle on the front sidewalk that afternoon.  The temperature was only 31°, and it was still foggy and cloud-covered; but there was a puddle, nonetheless.  Then the Eurasian collared doves came sweeping in, and the smaller songbirds fluttered off a little ways, some regretfully, and some peevishly and indignantly, judging from their scolding.

I wrote to Hannah:  “I forgot to ask Aaron and Joanna if they would care if I borrowed back their quilts for the county and state fairs in July and August/September.  Which would mean... Don’t get them dirty, so they don’t have to wash them!”

“I warned them of that,” replied Hannah. “Aaron has his put away, but Joanna is using hers.”

Every time I look at the picture I took of Aaron’s quilt nearly covering his entire room (king-sized quilt on a twin-sized bed), I laugh all over again.

For supper that evening, I had chicken ’n dumpling soup, a couple of slices of cheese, and rice pudding.

Larry didn’t get home until nearly 3:30 a.m.

Sunday at 7:30 a.m., it was 30°, felt like 21°, and was on the way up to 53°.  When I refilled and rehung the bird feeders an hour earlier, the night sky had only a dark red hue just above the eastern horizon, and there was no sign of wakeful birds; but already I could hear cardinals out there, though the sun would not be coming up for almost another half an hour.

I blow-dried and curled my hair – and actually remembered to put on the turtleneck I planned to wear before combing and spraying my hair.

Larry got up a bit after 8, but didn’t feel so good.  He’s had a bad cold for a couple of weeks, and two or three nights with little sleep didn’t help much.  So he stayed home from church. 

When I came slam-banging back through the door at 12:30 p.m., he was sound asleep in his recliner, and he didn’t even wiggle.  His hearing aids were off, granted; but he usually hears the door.

Four out of six members of Hannah’s family have influenza A; only Bobby and Joanna were at church.  Good thing those two hadn’t gotten sick, since they were scheduled to sing a duet that evening!

Here are Teddy and Amy’s four oldest children, Ethan, Emma, Lyle, and Jeffrey.  The picture was taken in 2008.

Since Current Catalog has quite good after-Christmas sales, I ordered next year’s cards.  With their discounts plus a promo code I found elsewhere online, I got 198 cards worth $288 for $62.07.  Good deal!

It was 37° this morning at 10:30 a.m., but there was a heat index of 50°, oddly enough.  The high would be 58°.  

Here’s another favorite photo I was glad to come upon:  it’s Joanna, our oldest granddaughter, who will be 23 next week.  She was one year old in this picture.  In the background is a Raggedy Ann quilt her other late grandmother Bethany made for her.  Bethany also made the dress and pinafore.  My late sister-in-law made the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.  

Bethany was one of my best friends. We had all sorts of fun working together in our high school office for an hour each afternoon when I was 16 and she was 17.  When she was sewing that cute dress and quilt for Joanna, she called me up, and said, “Oh, you’re going to be absolutely green with envy when you see what I’m making!”

Made me smile when I saw this picture and remembered that.  I miss her.

This morning I opened a jar of Bionaturae Peach Fruit Spread Bobby and Hannah gave us for Christmas, and put it on a toasted bagel.  Mmmmm, it’s delicious.  I much prefer the jams and jellies like this that have no sugar.

As I ate breakfast, I read the news. 

From an article in the New York Post:  “There was no signs of foul play...”

‘There was no signs’?? 

Good grief, no one knows how to write with proper grammar anymore, not even the journalists of the once-prestigious New York Post.

One of the dark-eyed juncos out front is chasing a smaller American goldfinch away from ‘their’ thawed-out-again puddle.  The more agile goldfinch does a quick fly-around and lands right back at the puddle.  “Na-na-na-nana!”

Now English sparrows and European starlings have joined the crowd on the front lawn.  The starlings are over by the big flowerbed pecking up seeds on the ground.  The sparrows have taken exception to the proprietary exhibitions of the juncos, and have chased several away.  

This evidently emboldened one henpecked (no, that was a male junco chasing the goldfinch; so the finch must be roosterpecked) (never mind; the boring people who name things think male and female juncos should just be called ‘male and female juncos’) – anyway, the junco-pecked goldfinch (which I can tell by a wayward white feather in the poor thing’s tail) hath waxen brave, deciding, “Nope!  Not skeert of the likes of you,” and is pecking back.  And not just returning pecks, either, but clearly being the aggressor. 

Yaayyy, little goldfinch! 

Yeah, I generally root for the runt.

A fox squirrel is in the front flowerbed, hunting for the perfect spot to bury a nut.  It’s big; must be a walnut.  There, he found a spot, and is digging industriously.

Now he’s being pestered by some juncos... annnd, he’s changed his mind about this ‘perfect spot’, and, walnut in mouth, is trottity-trotting on down the sidewalk to search for a better spot.

Two minutes later:  Here he comes again, sans walnut.  He evidently found the ‘perfect spot’.  He is now on the hunt for the next walnut.

Annnnd... he’s got it!  Walnut No. 2.  Off he goes to the west side of the house to bury it near Walnut No. 1.

Time to get on with the photo scanning!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn           ,,,>^..^<,,,